"Be aisy, be aisy. If they're in yonder shed, they are packed as safe as herrings in a barrel," said the coroner.
Then he divided his forces. Three men he sent down the path of the Glent Crammag. Two he left where they then stood to guard that outlet to the Curraghs of the north and west. Two others were to creep along the path under Snaefell, and shut out the course to the sea and the lowlands on the south and east. He himself would walk straight up to the shed, and his seven men as they saw him approach it were to close quickly in from the three corners of the triangle.
"Is it smoke that's rising above the shed? A fire? Possible. He thinks he's safe, I'll go bail. Och! yes, and maybe eating and drinking and making aisy. Now, men, away with you."
Within the shed itself at that moment there was as grim a scene as the eye of man has yet looked upon. The place was a large square building of two rooms, one on the ground-level and the other above it, the loft being entered by a trap in the floor with a wooden ladder down the wall. It had once served as gear-shed and office, stable, and store, but now it was bare and empty. In the wall looking east there was a broad opening without door, and in the wall looking north a narrow opening without window. To a hasp in the jamb of the doorway the big mare was tethered, and in the draught between the two openings the lad Davy with wandering mind was kindling a fire of gorse over two stones. The smoke filled the place, and through its dense volumes in the dusk of that vaporous dawn the faces of the men were bleared and green and haggard. The four fishermen stood in a group together, with old Quilleash a pace to the fore, the fowling-piece in his hand, its butt on the ground. Before him and facing him, two paces in front, stood Dan, his arms still bound to his sides, his head uncovered, and his legs free. There was a gaunt earnestness in every face.
"Listen to me," said old Quilleash. "We're going to judge and jury you, but all fair and square, as God is above us, and doing nothing that we can't answer for when the big day comes and every man has to toe his mark. D'ye hear what we're saying, sir?"
Dan hoved his head slightly by way of assent.
"We've trapped you, it's true, and fetched you by force, that's sartin; but we mean to be just by you, and no violence; and it's spakin' the truth we're going to do, and never a word of a lie."
The other men muttered "Ay, ay;" and Quilleash went on: "We're chaps what believes in a friend, and buckin' up for them as bucks up for you, and being middlin' stanch, and all to that; but we're after doing it once too often."
"So we are," said Crennell, and the others muttered again, "Ay, ay."
Quilleash spat behind his hand and continued: "The long and short of it is that you're goin' middlin' straight for hanging us, and it isn't natheral as we're to stand by and see it done."